In the Forest
by Kimmy Jarl
Summary: You're not scared, are you, Vegeta?" The rolling thunder made the house tremble, Vegeta wasn't able to hear his mother's next words. He knew what she was saying anyway, as she always said. "A prince should never be afraid."
1. Lightening

**Lightening**

It was the middle of the day and still the sky was black. The silence was not to be trusted, it could fall to pieces at any moment.

"You're not scared, are you, Vegeta?"

The rolling thunder made the house tremble, and Vegeta wasn't able to hear his mother's next words. He knew what she was saying anyway, as she always said. "A prince should never be afraid."

Vegeta had climbed on top of a stool to be able to look out through the window. He gazed upwards. There. A flash of lightening appeared, branched out, making it look like the whole sky had cracked. The house trembled under another round of thunder. Vegeta could feel the force of the lightening through his cheek, where it was leaning against the cold window. The light appeared to have stayed behind in the reflection of his eyes. When he blinked he saw it again. _Flash, flash, flash.  
_  
He waited for the next light to stream across the sky, but now with a hint of apprehension. Was he supposed to be scared?

"Are lightening dangerous?" he asked in a low voice.

After the thunder came rain and a strong wind. Trees were pulled up by their roots and new creeks and rivers were created. Vegeta's mother, who they all thought of as The Mistress of the House, had firmly forbidden anyone to leave the building. They weren't many persons sharing the house - three children and three adults. But even thought they were few and even though the house was fairly large, they soon became tired of each other.

Vegeta wanted to go outside. He spent the days with his nose pressed against one of the windows, imagining running through the rain, climbing the trees and holding on to the whipping branches.

On the third day of rain, the man and the women, who in the house only were called One and Two, started screaming at each other. Angry words echoed around the house like a memory of the thunder. It was shocking. One and Two had always been calmly smiling and now they were screaming with cruel adult voices. The children had never heard anything like it.

The Mistress of the House stepped between them, ordering them to silence. There was no patience in her then.

When they had left, the Mistress stood in thoughts for a moment. Then she struck the wall with her fist, muttering that enough was enough. "Not another _year_ in this bloody house in the middle of the forest," she whispered. She turned to face the children, who were standing in a doorway.

"Come with me," she said.

---

"Get close together, so everyone can be seen on the photo."

The tree children were standing straight and stiff with their backs against the white wall. The Mistress held a flat transparent box in her hand, she raised it, but lowered it again.

"Vegeta, your shoes are untied. Get over here."

Vegeta walked up to his mother, who bent down and helped him tie his boots. She gave him a light pat when she was through and he hurried back to where the other children stood, impatiently fidgeting. No one, though, had made any movement towards leaving. If the Mistress of the House wanted to take a picture, then there was nothing else to do but wait for the picture to be taken.

She raised the small box and it gave a brief, sparkling light.

"There. Come and watch."

She turned on the big screen that was connected to the main computer, and slowly a picture took shape on the screen.

Vegeta looked at himself. A small face under the black hair that rose above his head like a flame. His half-siblings Saldea and Djunn looked very much alike. Both were older than Vegeta, and taller. Their hair formed a jagged crown around their faces and hung halfway down their backs. The three of them wore simple, white shirts and they had their long, furry tails orderly wrapped around their waists.

"I shall send this photo to your father through the satellite. He has to know what his children look like." The Mistress sounded like she was issuing a command.

They stared at her. She seldom mentioned their father. Their father lived in the Royal city. And he was the king. To them he was as distant and unapproachable as the satellite among the stars.

"Would it be possible..." Saldea's voice was low and respectful, as it only was when she spoke to the Mistress. "Can we talk to father through the satellite."

"It's possible, but we can't do it." Vegeta's mother turned away and continued in a low voice, as if speaking to herself. "But one picture can't be dangerous. Your father has to know what you look like."


	2. The house

**The house**

Vegeta had lived in the house for as long as he could remember. He was born somewhere else, and he knew that someday they would go back there, but he seldom thought about that. The house was his world, and he was familiar with every nook and every cranny.

The house was of a tall cylindrical shape, with a roof that made it look like gigantic mushroom. At the bottom was the kitchen, often warm and filled with scents. To get higher up you had to use an elevator, which moved so softly that you couldn't tell if it was really taking you somewhere or if it was standing still. The floors above had many rooms, some were never used, but Vegeta knew them all. The highest floor didn't have any windows, and it was always dark. There were pillows and blankets and soft nests suited for sleeping.

In the largest room the Mistress sometimes gathered everyone so they could eat together. Mostly though, they just eat when they felt like it. There was never a shortage if food in the house. One and Two filled the large oven with meat and they prepared fruit, fish and roots.

From every window you could see the forest. The trees were taller than the roof, and day and night you could hear the noises from the hundred kinds of monkeys that lived in the forest. When the teacher, who arrived later to the house, told the children that they too were of the monkey kin, Vegeta was not surprised.

Vegeta was often alone in the forest. Without making a fuss about it he would suddenly disappear. His mother would look out of a window and see him reaching for a low branch filled with yellow berries, "Wait there," she would call out, but when she stood in the doorway he was gone. Under the branch lay his boots, the laces still tied.

At first she was worried, but she soon noticed that he always came back. She got used to it, and was actually rather proud that he already possessed a will that went against her own. "It takes a strong heart not to be tied down," she once said when they all were sitting together. She smiled and combed her fingers through Vegeta's hair. He was still too young to understand the words she was using. Djunn and Saldea looked at her sullenly. Sometimes the Mistress could smile at them, but she never did reach over and touch them, like she did with Vegeta. "The ones that are lawless are the most powerful. They lay their own law." The phrase was used to describe the authority of the king: The king lays the law.

The Mistress of the House encouraged Vegeta's self-reliance, as she called it. At the same time though, she was very particular about some things. One of the first words that Vegeta spoke was "thank you", and he got to use it a lot. And every morning she made sure that he was dressed in the brown boots with their high shaft and complicated lacing. It was one of the things that she wouldn't think about changing, and he never complained once.

At first Vegeta didn't leave the house out of sight. He liked to crawl over the large moss-covered tree trunks or turn the stones over to see that was underneath. But now and then something stabbed into him like fear and he quickly turned his head to see the house between the trees.

In time it wasn't as important to be close to the house, but he never went farther then he knew the way back. He learned that the forest reached out in every direction and that it orientated itself around the house.

He climbed the trees, imitated the monkeys and threw himself from one branch to another. With bare feet he balanced on a narrow branch and laughed excitedly at the height.

Sometimes he got the feeling that he was doing something that wasn't allowed or something that he ought to be ashamed about. Like when he was visiting the monkeys that he called the Redapes. Of every creature in the forest, those were the kind that he liked the most. Just like him they didn't have any fur, except on the head and the tail, but their skin was the brightest red that he had ever seen. They were small – the largest among them wasn't bigger than he was, while the smallest could fit in the palm of his hand.

The first time he saw them he kept his distance. He had learned to be careful. Maybe they would welcome him, or maybe they would bite him with their sharp little teeth. He had already given names to other kind of creatures that he carefully avoided, like the Big Blacks, the Stonethrowers and the Stabbing Birds.

The Redapes lived highest up in a grove of trees with white branches and large yellow leaves. Up there you could see the roof of the forest and the sun shine without shadows. It was unexpectedly bright, and when the wind blow it was unexpectedly cold. Vegeta held into a branch and spent a long time looking at the Redapes' fluttering play. The third time he visited them they greeted him with soft oooooooh-sounds and a very small Redape grabbed his sleeve and hung on to it, dangling back and forth. When it grew tired of this game it decided to climb on top of his head and snuggle into his hair like it had been a nest. Vegeta laughed and rocked the branch.

One day Vegeta came home later then he used too. He had been with the Redapes and they had come upon a tree that looked black and dead. Through the language of the Redapes, that could only convey pictures, Vegeta learned that the tree had been struck by lightening. But the tree wasn't dead. On some on the branches, new little leaves had been breaking out.

When he arrived to the house, most of the windows were dark, and the door was shut. Vegeta got to his toes and put his hand on the small white plate by the door, and it glided open with a muted sigh. He yawned. Before going to sleep he wanted to make a turn by the kitchen. He knew there was a roasted bird in one of the cooling cabinets and he hoped that no one had eaten it yet. He raised his hand to open the kitchen door, but froze when he heard noises in the other side. Someone was already in there. Something large fell to the floor and he heard a quiet laugh. It was Djunn who was laughing and he could hear Saldea hiss for him to hush. Vegeta put his ear to the door.

"What about this one?" Djunn asked.

"No, you idiot. They will notice that one missing. We're taking some of the small ones."

Vegeta hesitated. He remembered Djunn's hard shoves and Saldea's derisive words. He had let them drive him away. His mother had said that tears was the blood of the soul, and he refused to let them know that their rejection had hurt him.

The other two children in the house were closer to each other than to him. When he tried to think of a reason, he always thought of what his mother had said: He had grown inside of her stomach - just like a little child were growing in Two's stomach right now - but that was not the case of Djunn and Saldea.

Vegeta considered going directly to the bedrooms, but he was curious. Besides, he kept thinking about that rousted bird. How quiet it had become in there, suddenly... Vegeta began to back away. The door slid aside so fast that it might as well have been dematerialized. Djunn stood there, blinking at him, before taking a few long strides, easily catching up with him. Djunn was much taller than he was and nearly twice as wide. When he grabbed Vegeta's arm, he was lifted off the floor.

"What are YOU doing here?"

"I just wanted something to eat," Vegeta said. "That's the purpose of kitchens."

"Let him go," Saldea snapped. Djunn did as she had said and Vegeta took a step back. In the light from the kitchen the hallway was filled with shadows. Saldea was taller then Djunn, but more slender, she seemed to be smiling.

"Look at him," she said slowly. "He looks scared." Djunn laughed.

"You don't have to be scared," Saldea said, walking closer. "We're not going to hurt you... with these!" Two blades glittered - she was holding a knife in each hand. With a nonchalant twist of her wrist she threw one of the knives to Djinn, who nearly dropped it.

"That's what WE were doing in the kitchen." She paused, smiling a peculiar smile. "I think... I think you can play with us tomorrow."

"What!" Djunn exclaimed, staring at her.

"Why not," she shrugged. She turned to Vegeta. "We have built a house of our own that we can show you. After class." The last she added with a frown as she suddenly remembered that the teacher had told them to come in early for tomorrow's lecture. He had been very firm.

Without another word Saldea turned her back and started walking towards the elevator. Djunn glared at Vegeta before turning to go. Vegeta could hear them arguing as the door to the elevator slid shut.

He went into the kitchen to get the bird, but it was gone. He didn't feel like eating anyway.


	3. The teacher

**The teacher**

The teacher came to the house the same day that the storm ended. He travelled in a small ship, which lowered itself straight out of the sky. When the door of the ship slid open, a very tall man with a hard face stepped out. He walked up to the Mistress and gave her a nod, as if his arrival hadn't been anything out of the ordinary. "The king sent me to give lessons to the children," he said.

The Mistress had many questions. She wanted to know what was happening in the city, and most of all she wanted to know when they could come back. The new teacher only replayed that soon, not yet, but soon. Before long, he said vaguely, the king would have full control over his enemies, and only then could they return. Whereupon the teacher, who later introduced himself as Vakh, requested some time alone with the children. He chose a room for his lessons and, paying no heed to the Mistress's protests, he shut the door in her face.

Vakh turned around and looked at his new students. He saw a girl at about six, with a bearing of an almost exaggerated arrogance. Next to her stood a burly boy, with his mouth set in sullen defiance. Standing somewhat behind the others was a small, slender boy who gazed at the strange man with large, watchful eyes. He gave the same impression as one of the wild creatures of the forest, on the edge between fight and flight.

Vakh took his time. When he was certain that he had their full attention, he said in an unhurried voice, "You're lucky. You have me as your teacher. Now you are nothing, you are blind like the worms under the ground. But I will make you mighty, if you're strong enough to handle it."

"I'm strong enough," Djunn said, provoked. Vegeta and Saldea just glared.

"Sit down," Vakh said, and when they didn't obey, he continued sharply, "When I tell you to do something, you do it. If you don't, you don't want to learn, because the one that doesn't obey will have to leave the room."

Vegeta was the first to sit down. He lowered himself to the floor, his legs crossed and his back straight.

A fleeting smile ran over Vakh's face. "So, it seems like the youngest among you will be my only student."

Djunn and Saldea sat down so fast that they almost bounced.

The lesson was a severe disappointment. They had expected excitement. They had thought that they were going to learn how to be warriors. Saldea was the only one among them who remembered something of the time before the house, and many times she had told them that the most powerful warriors were the ones who ruled the world. When Vakh had said that he would be their teacher, the children had assumed that he would teach them how to be great fighters, like the far-away elite.

Instead they had to sit and listen to Vakh talking about mathematics, the laws of matter, about the stars and the planets, and the space in between.

"This I could have learned from the computer," Saldea muttered once.

"So why didn't you already know it?" Vakh said, unexpectedly calm.

Vakh questioned them about their previous knowledge. The Mistress had insisted that they should know the silent language that the computer spoke, all angles and crooked lines, and Vakh nodded approvingly when he understood that they could read. Everything else was met with ridicule and derisive grunts. "Worms under the ground," he muttered.

The third time they met, Vakh dimmed the lights and lit a projective image in the middle of the room. It was a very detailed image of a planet, brilliantly coloured in blue, green and red, and dressed in delicate veils of white clouds. Slowly and majestically it spun around its own axis, one half bathing in the golden light of an invisible sun. The children leaned forward, made a movement as if they wanted to reach out and touch the ethereal globe.

"This," Vakh spoke out of the darkness. "This is the planet Vegeta."

Vegeta gave a silent gasp. He knew that he wore the same name as the world, but never before had the world been so close and defined. The planet spun, and he stared at it as if he wanted to engrave every coastline and every nuance of colour in his memory.

Vakh continued talking, but Vegeta wasn't listening. Only when Saldea asked a question did he turn his attention to the other persons in the room.

"Where's the house?" Saldea asked.

Vakh bought his forefinger down on the middle of the largest continent. The image shimmered slightly when he touched it, then it became still again. "Here. As you can see, we are now on the greenest part of the northern hemisphere. Farther south it's much dryer, you can see it like a brown and red belt around. In the old days, all land was cowered by the forest, but in this belt nothing grows except rocks and sand."

Vekh changed the mode on the projection, so the clouds disappeared and the whole image was evenly lit.

"Where's the Royal city?" Vegeta asked.

"You mean Sommst?" Vekh sounded amused. "It's over here." He indicated the very edge of the continent, close to the red belt. Half a world away from the house.

"What's this?" Saldea asked, pointing at a thin line that meandered diagonally across the continent, from the vivid green in the north, to the blue sea, not far from the place that Vakh had said that the Royal city laid.

"It's a river," Vekh briefly explained, turning off the projector. Vegeta blinked, a bright circle lingering on his retina.

As the time went by, Vakh gave them assignments, equations and logical problems that grew more and more complicated. It soon became apparent that the competition to solve the problems first and best lay between Vegeta and Saldea. Every new assignment became a race between the two of them, and even though Vegeta hardly ever spoke directly to her, a brief glance or a whisper of a smile was sufficient to make her wild with anger. She hated the fact that her youngest brother so often could keep even steps with her thoughts.

Djunn lagged hopelessly behind. Once, when they all had had enough of the seemingly endless assignments, Djunn threw his writing pad onto the wall, hard enough to crack the screen.

"Screw this!" he scouted. "This is totally meaningless!"

Vakh picked up the broken pad and looked at it. "How planets affects each other? You call that meaningless?"

Djunn looked like he was starting to regret his explosion, but he continued stubbornly. "Whatever the gravity, the planets are still there. What's the use of learning all this shitty math?"

"This 'shitty math'," Vakh said slowly, and not at all as bad-tempered at they had all expected, "This 'shitty math' could have saved the lives of everyone on the planet F101 – yeah, I'm sure that they had a different name for their own world, but that name we'll never know." Vakh smiled, a smile that looked strange on his hard face.

They listened closely as the teacher continued.

"The people on F101 had covered the whole surface of their planet with buildings when they started to populate the moon. Shipping over enormous amounts of metal, they built houses, layer upon layer, like ants. What do you think happened next?" He gave them no opportunity to guess, as he kept talking, answering his own question. "The moon's gravity was altered, causing it to crash straight into the planet! And then what happened? The planed crashed straight into the sun! Just like that!" Vakh laughed, long and loud, and the children fell into his mirth.

Vegeta laughed at the grand foolishness of the image, and like the others he was amused by the irony: How fitting that the moon itself punished the ones who had exposed it to that kind of atrocity! From the three adults in the house, Vegeta had learned some of what the moon meant to his own people. Even though he had reacted with scepticism when he had heard about the moon priests in their white robes, he was still filled with a sense that it was wrong, so very wrong, to ruin the surface of the moon as the people on the nameless planet had done.

But Vegeta's laughter was short lived. Djunn and Salde fell quiet as well, almost as it they, too, all to vividly could imagine what it would feel like to be on that world, minutes before destruction, with no place to go.

Vakh stared at Djunn and his voice became hard as stone. "Do you have anything to add?"

"How long do we have to keep doing these assignments?" He sounded pretty subdued.

"You'll keep doing them until I say that you're finished. Would you give a knife to an infant? I'll move the lessons to a higher level when I feel that you are ready for it."

A knife. A higher level. It was the second time that Vakh hinted at great things to come.

Perhaps Vegeta was the only one who understood that they got to begin the other kind of training the very same day, almost as if Djunn's outburst had been a signal to get them started. Before they parted, Vakh told them to put the writing pads aside and close their eyes.

"Be absolutely still," he said, his voice slow and authoritative. "Feel your body. Feel the air you're breathing. Feel your heart beating. You are alive, full of energy. It flows through your body like the blood flows through your veins. Can you feel it?"

Vegeta felt it. He felt the energy inside him taking form and grew stronger, slowly at first, then as fast as he could imagine. He could almost see it. A sun, a tiny sun was growing in his stomach, three, four, finger widths beneath the place where his ribs met. The sun shined there, untouchable and supreme.

When the other children left, Vegeta stayed behind to talk to the teacher.

"Well? What do you want?" Vakh asked. He was curious. When he had first laid eyes on the children, he had come close to dismissing Vegeta as small and timid, as the weakest by far. However, as time went by he had had to alter that assumption. In the young boy Vakh had come to suspect a strength of will that was almost frightening in its intensity. Looking back at him now, the teacher caught himself avoiding the boy's direct stare. _What does he see_, Vakh thought. _What does he see, when he's looking at me like that?  
_  
"What is it, this energy?" Vegeta asked.

"A good question," Vakh paused for a moment to consider. "It's... strength, it's power. Sometimes it's called the life-force, since it exists in everything living, although it takes something special to learn to control it."

Vegeta nodded, almost impatiently. He didn't feel that he had gotten a satisfactory answer to his question.

"How does the energy feel like to you?" Vakh asked.

Vegata hesitated, frowning at the floor. Then he raised his gaze. "Like a sun." He put one tiny fist over his stomach. "Right here."

Vakh's eyes grew very wide. "Like a sun..." he murmured to himself. He shook it off then, straightening his back. "Good. Sounds like you have a possibility to understand what its all about. We'll talk more about it tomorrow."

The next day though, Vakh seemed to have forgotten what he had said. He was impatient and irritable when he talked to the children, and he dismissed them after just a short while. He walked directly to the Mistress and informed her that he had to return to the Royal city at once. He couldn't say when he would be back. Without bringing anything with him from the house, he left, just as unexpectedly as he had arrived.

His young students didn't ask where he had gone, or why. To them Vakh's departure only meant that they could visit Djunn and Saldea's tree house a bit earlier then they had expected.


	4. A game with knives

**A game with knives**

In the storage room by the kitchen, Djunn and Saldea had found a small air scooter. Vegeta had seen them playing with it, and he had often wished that he could join them in the reckless flights. Now he wished that they would reach their destination at once, just so he could get off the thing as soon as possible.

He was hanging halfway outside the vehicle, holding into a handle with white knuckles. Frozenly he stared at the ferns and the flowers that streamed by underneath them. Very far down underneath them.

Djunn was holding the steering stick, and he guided the scooter softly between the trunks and the branches. Then, without giving any warning, he brought them into a lurching spin. Vegeta's boots slipped on the edge of the vehicle and it was only his grip around the handle that prevented him from falling off. He gave an involuntarily scream, short and shrill. Climbing back up, he found new footing for his boots. The first thing he heard was the sound of Djunn laughing.

The next time Djunn made the scooted spin, Vegeta very carefully didn't make a sound. Instead it was Saldea who sharply told him to quit.

It didn't take much time for them to reach their destination, and still it was farther away from the house then Vegeta had ever been before. Djunn landed the scooter on a wide branch, and Vegeta looked around with wide, interested eyes. Where the branch met the trunk he saw something that looked like a large, brown cocoon. It took some time before he realised that he was looking at the tree house. He slowly stepped forward when Djun lifted a loose flap and gestured for him to crawl inside.

The inside was larger then he had thought it would be, and the floor was cowered in blankets. It was dusky, sheltered from the sun and the wind, the sounds from the forest muted.

Vegeta felt a smouldering excitement at the pit of his stomach, though he wasn't sure why. He sat on the soft blankets, his sister and his brother on either side of him. They were so close that he could have reached out and touched them.

"Let's start with the food," Saldea said, opening a small bag. Vegeta breathed deeply the smell of his favourite food: fried spheres of fish, still crisp and steaming from the pot. Djunn and Saldea grabbed one ball each and started to gnaw on it. But when Vegeta with a cautious smile reached out, Saldea pulled the bag away.

"I don't think you get it," Saldea said in a gentle tone. "This is our house. I'm the mistress here, and I say that that you can eat when we are finished."

Vegeta leaned back against the trunk of the tree. The others laughed and talked as if he wasn't there. Talked about the knives they had taken from the kitchen. Vegeta didn't listen. Time must have slowed down, since it took them forever to finish off each tiny ball. Finally Saldea picked up the bag and held it in front of him. She shook it slightly, the last of the fried fish tumbling on the bottom.

"Look, there are some left. Here. What's the matter with you? Go ahead and eat them!"

Vegeta took one of the balls, eat it while the others watched his every bite. He found it heard to swallow, almost as if his throat was rejecting the food. He took a deep breath when the last mouthful was gone and he wiped his greasy fingers on the front of his shirt.

They crawled outside, squinting in the leaf-silhouetted sunlight. While Vegeta shaded his eyes, Djunn opened a deep hatch on the side of the scooter and picked out the two little knives. He held they in his hand and looked down towards the hidden ground with a doubtful expression on his face.

"They will fall if we practice up here," he muttered.

"So let's go down to the ground." Saldea grabbed one of the knives. "This if how you carry it," she said and laughed. She put it between her teeth, grinning through the blade. Evidently, she liked their new toy.

Djunn did the same, followed her as she started to climb down towards the ground. Vegeta watched. He didn't think they climbed particularly well.

_I'm better._

He aimed for the branch directly below, and jumped. Landed on hands and feet, sweeping with his tail to gain his balance. Running down the branch until it started to bend under his weight, he grabbed it and swung to another. Catching it smoothly. He was fast, and took more risks then he usually did. When he reached the last branch he didn't hesitate, but let himself fall the rest of the way. A few heartbeats he fell, landing softly on the plant-covered earth.

Vegeta looked up, slightly out of breath, and it didn't take long before he glimpsed Djunn and Saldea, their fingers finding handholds on the rough bark. As they reached the ground, they turned around and stared at him.

Saldea leaned her head to the side and frowned, a rather contemplative look on her face. It was Djunn who, with a wordless snarl, rushed forth and pushed Vegeta so he fell to the ground, the breath knocked out of him. Gasping for air, Vegeta tried to raise himself, but was thrown down again by a hard kick to his stomach.

"Djunn!" Saldea exclaimed. She almost sounded shocked.

"He... he challenged me!"

"Forget it." She grabbed his arm and pulled him away. "Forget it," she repeated. She pointed at a tree not far away. "Let's see if you can hit that with your knife."

Vegeta coughed. He got to his feet and coughed again. There was a strange taste in his mouth.

Djunn and Saldea tried different ways of throwing the knives, and they used them in a pretend battle against each other. Neither of them seemed to enjoy the game, and it didn't take long before Saldea said, "You want to go back?" Djunn nodded.

This time Vegeta had no difficulty to stay behind them. There was a dull ache in his stomach and halfway up the trunk he had to stop and close his eyes until the world had stopped spinning.

Never before had he been attacked like that. He was shaken, but not particularly surprised.

In the classroom, when he had won some small victory by the writing pads, he sometimes glanced at Saldea, knowing exactly how much that glance annoyed her. He also knew that she would do her outmost to be able to return it with a glance of her own. In a way, it was a look of mutual understanding.

He had suspected that Djunn would discard the subject matter and respond with his fists. He wondered if it was over now. Didn't think so.

No one said a word on the way back to the house.


	5. Who you are

**Who you are**

Vegeta jumped off the scooter and started walking towards the house. Djunn caught up with him before he reached the door.

"Stop right there!"

Vegeta turned around. He raised his face to meet Djunn's heated gaze. The sun was ruthlessly bright.

"I defeated you," Djunn said. His mouth was tight and his hand clenched into trembling fists. "Admit it!"

Vegeta didn't answer, he just watched the other boy's face heat up, the anger slowly painting his cheeks the colour red.

"Say it to me." He was pressing it even further, perhaps beyond recovery. Djunn knew it, and his voice deepened under the gravity of his words.

Vegeta glanced at Saldea, remembering how she had come to his aid back at the tree house. Now she just stood there, an astonished, even helpless expression on her fine features. Djunn waited in heavy silence.

So intensely were they focusing on each other, that they neither saw nor heard the Mistress approach. She just seemed to stand there, right next to them, breathing heavily, actually snarling with anger. Neither of them had seen her like this before, so absolutely furious.

"Djunn!" Arm outstretched, she pointed her index finger at the boy, and he backed away a step. "I heard you. You wanted Vegeta – Vegeta! To… You! How dare you say that you're better then him? You're nothing! In the future, the only thing that will elevate you beyond the level of mediocrity is that you happen to be a brother to _king_ Vegeta!" She took a deep breath, stared down at the boy and waited, letting it sink, before she turned back to the house.

"Come with me, Vegeta."

Vegeta hurried after her. He cast a glance over his shoulder; saw his sister and his brother. They were standing there on the lawn in front of the doorway, shaken, mute, scared.

The Mistress of the House led him into her large room and shut the door behind them. She settled herself on a thick, red carpet and gestured for him to sit down in front of her.

"Vegeta." She said his name slowly, dragging out each syllable. "You have grown. You're not a little baby anymore."

"It been known to happen, or so I've heard," Vegeta said, and was met with a hard stare. He had hoped that that would made her smile, but he didn't even come close.

"You're doing the right thing, when you reproach me." She lowered her head in a fractional nod.

Vegeta took a breath to say that he did not, in no way, reproaching her, but he closed his mouth again. He had learned that his mother had an immovable opinion about the world, and above all she had an immovable opinion about _him_. She knew why he did what he did and why he said what he said. To gainsay her now would only serve to make her angry. He decided to be quiet instead, and listen to what she had to say.

"You are Vegeta." She fixed him with a forceful gaze. "From the day you were born I knew it. That's why I gave you that name, even though it's a king's prerogative to wear it. You have a soul of steel, and the royal blood runs untainted in your veins. One day you _will_ be the king, and no one will question that you are Vegeta!"

Vegeta stared at his mother with wide eyes. She was saying it outright, everything that she had only hinted at before. He straightened his back and raised his chin. But, even though his heart was beating hard from excitement, there was a voice inside of him that whispered doubt. He thought about what Djunn had said, thought about his raised fists and reddened face. _You were afraid_, the voice whispered.

"When?" Vegeta asked, loud enough to lock out the doubt. "When are we going to..."

"To leave this accursed place, and return to the Royal City? Soon, Vegeta, soon. I promise."

Vegeta felt like he was going to burst from unanswered questions. What were they waiting for? What hindered them from returning, if the king really wanted them there?

"Vegeta," the Mistress said slowly, a suggestion of uncertainty in her voice. "I heard what Djunn said. What's going on? Is there anything you'd like to talk to me about?"

"No," Vegeta said curtly. _A soul of steel_, she had said.

"Good," his mother said after a brief pause. "There's much you need to know, but I think it's enough for now. We'll talk more tomorrow." She gestured to the door, a dismissing wave, and Vegeta got to his feet. As he was leaving the room, her voice reached him again.

"You are Vegeta. The living Vegeta. Don't you forget it."

What could he say possibly say after that? He just kept walking, while her words sank and sank inside of him.


	6. A bright light

**A bright light**

Vegeta couldn't sleep. Thoughts kept bothering him, making it impossible to relax.

He stood up, rashly impatient, and kicked the blanket across the room. The feeling was more then restlessness; it was an urgency, real and tangible. He had to get out of the house. Now!

He padded down the hallway on bare feet. It was dark outside and the air was cool. High in the sky the crescent moon shone brightly. Vegeta walked with decisive steps to the place where they had left the scooter, it glimmered like an insect in the faint white light. Swinging himself up on the driver's seat, he grabbed the navigation stick and pushed it upwards.

Nothing happened. A growl of unrestrained frustration slipped forth between his teeth. His wandering eyes caught sight of a small white button next to the stick. It reminded him of the plate they used to open the doors inside the house. He placed his fingers on the button, and the scooter came to life. It didn't make any noise, but he could suddenly feel it radiating energy.

He pushed the stick again, and the scooter lifted into the air. Whoosh. He relaxed his grip, and the vehicle stopped its steep ascent, came to a standstill far above the treetops.

Below him, the forest was silent and still. Moonlight gave the darkness leaf-shaped contours of silver. It was hard to imagine all the little lives below the billowing surface of the trees. Right now it all seemed so cold and distant.

His feeling of discomfort did not go away. The wind was cold, and Vegeta shivered. He took a deep breath, which was followed by a stabbing pain in his stomach. A reminder. Anger came with the pain. That, and the shame.

He brought the steering stick forward and the scooter gained a speed that at any other time would have made him laugh, but his face was silent and grim. All he did was increase the speed until he had to squint his eyes and gasp for breath. He realized that he could die, but that thought, too, was cold and distant.

For a split second something trembled. He, the scooter, or the ground below.

He looked up, and forgot everything else. It was a vessel, like the scooter, only much, much larger. It floated across the sky, deceptively slow. Like a falling tree. For the span of a few heartbeats it blocked out the light of the moon, and then it was right above him, overpowering large. _Can it see me?_ Then it passed him, giving no sign that he had been noticed. Moving onwards. Moved towards the house.

Vegeta twisted the scooter around. The vessel was standing still now, he realised. Looming, threatening. His grip around the steering stick hardened, ready to bring him forward. One moment of hesitation, and all choice was taken from him.

A bright light, brighter then the sun. It conquered the night, and ripped his sight away. Complete light, complete darkness.

No time. It felt like the air itself had come to life, and _pushed_ him with a force that was impossible to resist. Like nothing, it ripped him away from the scooter and tossed him into the empty air.

He fell. He felt the emptiness around him, and he felt a scorching heat. It was hot, very hot. His body jerked harshly as he struck one branch, and a second and a third. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

---

Was his eyes open? He couldn't see a thing. He closed them, and opened them again (for sure this time). Still nothing.

Vegeta stood up, gasping and hissing. He hurt all over. His skin felt like it was on fire, and every movement felt like it tore something open. Blood ran freely down his body, but he was able to stand. He wanted to go back to the house, _had_ to go back to the house. But how, if he couldn't see?

He brought his fingertips up to his eyes, probed tentatively. It stung, but he couldn't feel any serious injury. The eyelids, the slightly yielding globes, they felt the way they had always felt. He leaned his head back, hoping that the moon would penetrate the darkness. Nothing. Perhaps some place where the branches were less thick?

He started to walk, stumbling in the direction of the house. He still knew the direction. Hands outstretched, he felt his way around a large, sprawling tree. At times, he glanced upwards. There! A speck of white light. He squinted, and saw the crescent moon. He started to walk faster, even though the ground was still hidden. A short moment later, he saw something else, something glimmering between the trees. He walked closer. It was the scooter.

He laughed out loud. Nothing was as bad as he had feared. He would be back at the house in a few minutes. His mother would take away all this. Nothing was as bad as he had feared, nothing had changed. The house would surely still be there.

Shakily, he mounted the small craft and raised it over the treetops. It was dark and blurry, but he could still see the rough outlines of the trees. He saw the opening in the forest, where the trees gave way to the house. But the opening was too large, too circular. Something was wrong.

He landed in the open space where the house had used to stand. The area was smooth and completely empty. Nothing was left, not even a leaf.

He touched the ground where the house had used to stand. It didn't feel like earth, it was some kind of paste, warm and dark. It stuck to his fingers and his feet, clung to them like glue.

"Mother," he said. Ran a few steps, slipped and fell. He began to dig, tearing at the sticky paste. Underneath, the soil was hard and cold, and he stopped abruptly. Got to his feet.

A last sliver of hope, or something else entirely, made him search, made him rush into the forest and cry out, calling, running, stumbling over unseen roots. It was totally silent, like shouting in a dream.

He ran for a long time, circling the emptiness once, twice, perhaps three times, but as the sky started to brighten, his voice abandoned him. So did the hope, if hope it was.

He saw the first rays of the sun through a shimmer of tears.


	7. A new direction

**A new direction**

The feathers of the bird was a bright green and its neck was long and thin. Its body looked fat and juicy. Vegeta threw the knife. Miss. Damn.

Maybe it wasn't too late. The bird was startled, but it hadn't flown away. Vegeta climbed closer, breathlessly slow. _I'm a lizard, _he thought. _A snake. My clothes are green and you can't see me._

The bird opened its beak and spread its wings, but too late. Vegeta was holding it around the neck. It flapped and thrashed, and they would both have fallen down if Vegeta hadn't wrapped his legs around the branch. Hanging upside down, he spun the bird in a circle and felt its neck snap.

Down on the ground, knife in his hand, Vegeta eat the bird. He left nothing but the feathers and the hard pieces.

---

The first day was the hardest. Bleeding and squinting in the sun he walked unsteadily to the shadows underneath the trees. He crawled into a tangle of wines and fell asleep with a feeling of finality.

He woke up with a thousand ants chewing at his wounds. He brushed and he brushed. A large bug, heavy with his blood, had burrowed into a rip in his upped arm. He tore the bug away. It buzzed in his ears and every breath he drew was hot with fever.

The next thing he remember he was laying in Djunn and Saldea's tree house. He was wrapping a big blanket around himself, not because he was freezing, but because he was about to fall asleep and he knew that it would get cold when the sun went down. He dreamt that the forest was burning, but he woke up with rain spattering the roof.

It wasn't just the thirst that made him climb down – he also wanted to wash himself. His hands was back and sticky and his face was burning.

He found a brook. It was deep and narrow and the water ran very fast. He lowered his head and drank. Then he sat down in the brook, took off his shirt and let the current take it away. He rubbed his skin, and disturbed several cuts that he hadn't noticed before. Yet he felt better. The fever was gone and his thoughts was working again.

"Father," he said.

---

He had practiced with the knife. Yesterday he had missed the green bird, but this time he would hit his target. He held the blade in a steady grip, ready to threw.

He heard a noise, a dry twig snapped behind him. His prey flew away and suddenly Vegeta wasn't the hunter, but the hunted. A glimpse was enough for him to tell what it was: a Big Black. He wanted to run, but he knew that the large monkey was much faster then him. So he threw the knife. It hit the Big Black on the forehead and bounced off, without doing any damage. The creature roared and pulled back a paw for a blow. Claws descended, and Vegeta leaped backwards, narrowly escaping getting cut.

Vegeta didn't move his gaze from the hunter's eyes. He knew exactly where the knife was. He had decided to grab it, but he saw that he was too late when the animal lowered its body to the ground, ready to leap. And still he was staring into its eyes, which made him think of stones or the sun or anything that wasn't living and growing, only existing. Vegeta felt the power well up inside of him. He was _not_ defenceless.

He struck out with his hand and a knife blade of light hit the animal between the eyes. This time it was effective. The Big Black hit the ground with a thud and a sight. A thousand red flowers was crushed under its weight. Through its head was a hole, big enough for two fingers to fit inside.

---

Vegeta found the knife the tree house. He cut a hole in the middle of a blanket – it was green – and pulled it over his head. He gathered his new clothes with a green strip around his waist. He had to return to the place where the house had used to be. That's where the scooter was.

He ran between the trees, ran so he wouldn't hesitate. When he reached the empty space he had decided that it wouldn't affect him.

He walked through the black muck, and for each step it felt like something inside of him was shrinking. He pushed it away, the house that had been standing here before. When he reached the scooter the memory of his mother's face had became distant and blurred.

He rode the vehicle higher than the treetops and looked down at the circular clearing. He thought that it was a part of him now, like a black fingerprint on his soul. Lifting his eyes, he looked out over the forest. He didn't have to linger. He had a place to go, after all.


	8. On the way

**On the way**

Vegeta reached the river on the same day that he killed the Big Black. The river was so wide that the trees on the other side resembled a thin green stripe. The water moved slowly, massively. It gave him his direction, his way south.

The days on the river blended together. One time thunder and rain forced him to seek shelter among the trees, but most of the time the river was blue and tranquil under a warm sun. His skin darkened and his cuts healed completely. He learned how to swim and to catch the fishes of the river.

His time was filled with speed. Every moment he didn't spend on the scooter filled him with a sense of unease. It was only on the way, full speed forward, that he felt purposeful, almost pleased. Before he fell asleep, no matter how tired he was, he sat down and closed his eyes. To feel the power wasn't difficult anymore, and it was becoming more and more easy to shoot knife blades through his hands.

When he slept he sometimes saw the silent ship again. He saw it sail across the sky and block out the light of the moon. When he woke up he would whisper to himself, "My father is in Sommst. When he sees me he will say 'You are alive!' and he will lift me up and hold me in his arms." Each time the dream came back he whispered the same words. "My father will say 'You are alive!' and he will lift me up and hold me in his arms."

---

The forest had changed. The trees stood wider apart and the ground was bare and stony. His need to hurry had lessened. The changes in the landscape was a sign that he was getting closer, and when he saw the blue mountains in the distance he knew that he would soon be there.

The mountains weren't really blue, he discovered. They were all kinds of green and brown. The river had changed too, it was more narrow and the water sizzled between the rocks.

Vegeta slowed down and stopped the scooter. It hovered just above the surface of the water. He was starting to get hungry, and in the water below was a large collection of fish. Their backs broke through with white foam and a tail splashed water over his leg. He leaned down and reached out his hand. He wouldn't have to wait for dinner today.

Vegeta almost fell into the water when he heard a voice behind him. "Boy!"

He regained his balance and looked around. Someone was standing by the beach, with the feet in the water. "Come here," the figure called out. "I won't hurt you." It was a girl, he saw. Her clothes was a simple fabric wrapped around her waist, leaving her small breasts bare. She had to be twice as tall as he was, and her shoulders looked angular and strong. They stared at each other.

"Come here," she said and reached out a hand. "It's alright."

She spoke to him as if he had been a very small child, barely old enough to understand her words. He gave here a grim glance and she laughed. It was her laughter that convinced him. He landed the scooter on the beach and walked up to her.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm on the way to Sommst," he said. "The city." He waved with his hand down the river.

"On that thing?" She looked at the scooter and stiffened. Vegeta grinned. She looked funny, almost as if she was expecting the small vehicle to attack her. He wasn't scared of her. If she tried anything, he thought, she would get a blade of light straight between her breasts.

"Are you alone?" she asked.

Vegeta nodded.

"The cave is over there," she said and pointed into the forest. "You have nothing to fear from them if you really are alone."

He had no idea what she was talking about. "What cave?" An impatient question. He should be on his way soon.

"You'll see," she said. "I'll just get my spear." She skirted a couple of big rocks and bent down to pick something up. He looked at the "spear" with a sense of vague disbelief. It was a smooth stick, about her height, with a point made out of a jagged stone.

"I'm Fasha."

Vegeta knew that he was supposed to answer with his own name, but he met her inquiring stare with a shrug. She frowned, not like she was angry, but like he was something that she had never seen before. He resisted the urge to back away when she walked up to him and reached out to touch the green blanked that her was wearing.

"What's this made out of?"

"I don't know." He didn't much care either, but he silently contemplated her own clothing, which looked like it had been ripped off the back of a furry animal.

"Let's go then." She turned around and started walking. He hesitated only briefly before he followed. He had to run to catch up with her. The walked in silence for awhile – she walking and he running – before she asked over her shoulder, "Do you come from the city? From Sommst?"

"No," he said, and jumped over a rock.

"No?" She halted, and he nearly ran into her, but instead his heel made a dent in the soft moss. "But I though…" She scratched her neck, disgruntled. "The King's messenger was riding on one of those things too. Like yours, only bigger."

"The King's messenger?" His voice rose in excitement. "What did he want?"

"More soldiers. My brother and his friends has left already, and I'm going to follow." She shook the wooden spear over her head. "I'm going to the city right now, and no one can stop me!"

"Aren't we going the wrong way then?"

She slammed the butt of the spear into the ground and spun to face him. She smirked. "Is that an offer?"

He took a step backwards and frowned. She wanted to… what? Ride along on HIS scooter? "What about the cave?"

"We're almost there. Just up this hill." She started walking again, and he stood still, looking at her retreating back. Taking him for granted, was she? Oh well, he'd show her…

"Wait up!"

But first he had to take a look at this cave of hers.


End file.
